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‘Well of Infinite Sadness’

“He’d gone down into the well of infinite sadness, beyond the reach of story, and he didn’t make it out. But he had a beautiful, yearning innocence, and he was trying”.

It is the author Jonathan Franzen on the suicide of his friend David Foster Wallace; the extract is taken from Franzen’s 2012 work ‘Farther Away‘ (page 168). The book is a wonderfully curated example of carefully chosen articles and touches upon the themes of literature, academia, ecology, friendship, love, marriage and loss. If you are a fan, I’d heavily recommend reading it, as it presents the author at his most passionate when rhapsodising about the love of his craft and fellow writers. It also contains some of his most personal writing when dealing with the after effects of the loss of his friend, and of the pressures of modern life in general.